Still basking in the joy of working with kids who are eager to learn and enjoy their time in class. The afternoon group are exhausted after coming from school. They are sweaty from walking long distances to the church in the heat. But they are still so much fun!
It's not perfect. They are teenagers. Everyday I say "It's time to start class!" And every day their response is groan, sit and stare blankly, ignore, walk farther away (like they will become invisible or something!), huff and groan some more. I used to wait and beg. Now I just walk up to the classroom and soon they all follow.
The ones who groan and huff the loudest are the same ones who want to stay and learn more when class is over. So I guess all of the huffing and groaning is more for show and I don't take it personally.
Yesterday I was telling someone whose opinion I respect about the class. After she heard what we are doing she told me that I am doing a good job. That compliment from that specific person felt awesome! I did not take it lightly. I told her thank you in a very sincere way. She smiled and said you're welcome.
This week we have started each class with a devotional. I tried working with some devotionals that are common in Honduras, but they were about adult topics like marriage or else really long, so I went back to my old faithful - "Jesus Calling". The only downfall is that it is downloaded onto my Kindle, which means I have to bring the Kindle to church with me every day. Not the best idea to have the Kindle at the church (where things have a tendency to, as we say, walk away. Traveling back and forth to the church with the Kindle is not wise either. I can't stop anywhere with it in my car. I am hoping to find a copy of the book in Spanish.
On June 29th our devotional was about worship, which is Buen Provecho's theme for the month of June, so that was perfect. Today was about taking quiet time and slowing down so you can hear from God. Every day it lists at least 2 bible verses that correspond, so I hand out bibles at the start of each class and have a kid look up each verse ahead of time. The kids are reading aloud better than I expected. Most of them are participating in the discussion. Some of the kids who go to night school come to both the morning and the afternoon class! All of them are learning really quickly.
They are also bringing me more and more English homework and asking for help. For most of them, the homework is completely beyond their comprehension. It is really frustrating for them because - for example today, a boy had to fill in the blank with "Do" "Don't" "Does" or "Doesn't". But he had no idea what any of the words in the whole sentence mean. Therefore he had absolutely no clue how to use any form of do or don't. He doesn't even know "The" or "In" or "There are". He does know colors and numbers in English. That's about it.
We spent 3 hours filling in 3 pages of homework. At least he is willing to sit and learn. He will be a step ahead of his classmates who are blindly filling in the blanks. Like he used to, until today.
He doesn't know basic sentence structure. He didn't capitalize the first letter of his sentences or use any punctuation unless I reminded him. I am torn. I don't have time to teach him all he needs to know in order to do the homework. So I try the best I can. I make him look things up in the dictionary. I write down the rules of whatever we are doing in his notebook, so he can look back at it later. But I do give stronger clues than I should and point out correct answers more than I would like to. Otherwise we would never finish. In the end he did his homework. I think he understood 50% of it, but I asked him to review it and he has the rules of the grammar in his notebook. So if he wants to learn, he can. At least he is a step ahead of his classmates who
This weekend is our last weekend of swimming until the new class starts in November. I have mixed feelings. Yay! I don't have to get up at 5 a.m. every Saturday and Sunday. And I won't be at the church 7 days per week anymore. But BOO! I will miss watching the kids and the adults push themselves to do things they never imagined they could. I love sharing swimming with them!
